Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

[King Bob]

I probably should have read Journal of the Plague Year since it's more timely, but I found a nice illustrated edition of this one at the library store and had been wanting to read it. Considering that it's 302 years old, it read pretty easily. The basic story is familiar, but Defoe goes into a lot of detail about how he kept himself alive - much like The Martian. (I wonder if you'd consider this proto-SF?) There's a certain amount of deus-ex-machina: his ship is wrecked but lies just offshore so he's able to gather material from it until another storm sinks it, and there is clay on the island so he can make pottery. On the whole it was fairly interesting although not fast paced. In fact he's marooned for 27 years. In places there are sentences like (not exact quote) "And so I passed the next three years." Friday doesn't arrive until almost the end. A bit of religion in there, but only a couple of pages out of nearly 400, and appropriate to the time.

A bit of swordplay and gunfire. Doom recommended? If you like old novels I suppose.

[Greg]

I think I read this back in the 1980s. Either that or I read a biography of Alexander Selkirk. The story of Crusoe is based and Selkirk.

[King Bob]

I think there was a book about Selkirk about that time. I looked at Defoe's Wikipedia page to get the publication date for my review, and they said that the island Selkirk lived on has been renamed Robinson Crusoe Island.